George KraychykJohn Oliver appears this weekend at the Stress Factory comedy club in New Brunswick.
John Oliver is a satirist in the guise of a news correspondent on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” cheekily reporting on everything from Harry Potter to tea parties. After honing his absurdist chops with the Cambridge Footlights, a Cambridge University comedy troupe that boasts such alums as John Cleese and Hugh Laurie, the native of Birmingham, England, was recruited to join the mock journalism program in 2006 thanks to a recommendation from fellow British funnyman Ricky Gervais. This year, Oliver earned an Emmy Award for his contributions to “The Daily Show.”

Working on the Comedy Central series is a full-time job, but Oliver still makes time to perform stand-up gigs. Prepping to tour, he has warm-up shows this weekend at the Stress Factory in New Brunswick.

We spoke with him via phone about comedy, tea and Emmys.

Q. You were at the Morristown tea party the other week?

A. That’s right, yeah.

Q. You really like making fun of New Jersey.

A. It’s not just me. Jersey is the muse for most comedians. I hadn’t realized that until I landed on America’s shores. Jersey has done great service to the comedic community.

Q. What about Jersey, England. Do people make fun of them?

A. No. Jersey is held in very high esteem in England.

Q. Isn’t the Stress Factory a strange name for a club?

A. I’m getting ready for a stand-up series, and there’s no better way to prepare than pitting yourself against the Stress Factory in Jersey.

Q. You must be busy doing “The Daily Show” and stand-up too.

A. Actually, I find stand-up quite relaxing. With the day-to-day stresses of getting the show on, it’s quite nice to do something where you’re only responsible for yourself.

Q. Are you going to be testing out new material, like tea party humor?

A. No tea party humor. The problem with tea parties is that it seems to be a temporary phenomenon.

Q. I thought it would end after April 15. Personally, tea parties make me thirsty. I’m just a really big fan of tea.

A. Thanks very much. You say that to a British person, it’s a compliment, even though it’s really a compliment to China or India.

Q. Congratulations on the Emmy win.

A. I hadn’t figured how you would get an Emmy on the plane, but you’re allowed to carry it on, which is weird for something that has sharp bits and is extremely heavy and you could bludgeon someone to death with it. As they were busy taking toy baseball bats from children, you can walk straight on with an Emmy.

Q. It’s great that you’re beating out the networks for these awards.

A. Really, it’s Jon’s show. The whole show is his voice and we just tag along.

Q. “The Daily Show” is political, but at the same time it’s kind of neutral because the media get mocked more than any other entity.

A. We don’t see ourselves as a news or political program. We have some pretty stupid jokes for a political program.

Q. I like the headlines. Iraq was “Mess O’Potamia.”

A. It’s a challenge trying to find a stupid way to frame serious stories. Wyatt (Cenac) and I write all day, so we tend to do the headlines. The other correspondents are off doing field pieces. For things like Jason Jones going to Iran, that took a lot of work. I’m off to Pittsburgh to cover the G-20.

Q. Wow. Pittsburgh. Is that a place you’ve wanted to visit for a long time?

A. My whole life. It’s a dream come true. I’ve given it so much buildup since being a 4-year-old boy staring at the globe, pointing at Pittsburgh.

Q. Are you going to revisit all the locations where “Flashdance” was filmed?

A. I am going to try to drink in as much of the city as I can. You can’t do Pittsburgh in one day, especially when there’s a riot going on.

Q. You started on the show as a correspondent. Your background is comedy, but were you also interested in journalism when you were younger?

A. I was doing stand-up and writing for TV and radio in England. This whole fake journalism thing came later.

Q. Stephen Colbert had left when you started. Did you feel like they were big shoes to fill?

A. Trying to fill his shoes is like standing in clown shoes.

Q. After the election, there was concern that satire was going to die. To me, disillusionment with Obama has been a better source of comedy than George Bush.

A. It’s been much more fun. With Bush, it was just jokes about how terrible things were. With Obama, the stuff he was saying during the campaign was incredibly inspirational, but it is completely impractical the way the world is. We went through the same thing in England with Tony Blair, someone who comes in on a huge high and ends up being a disappointment.

Q. Initially, health care didn’t seem like something that would be funny and yet it exploded this summer.

A. When feelings run so high on an issue, it is always funny. When people are that furious, you are going to get emotions that are too extreme to take seriously.

Q. Glenn Beck seems like the counterpoint of “The Daily Show.” Beck makes his show out to be comedy, but he’s not really kidding.

A. He’ll say that he models himself after Jon Stewart, that he’s an entertainer when he’s the opposite.

Q. I guess it was inevitable that someone from the right wing would emerge as a conservative comedian.

A. He’s definitely a conservative, but I take issue with him describing himself as a comedian. He’s never made me laugh. He makes me pound my head against the wall.